A judge in the US has overturned a jury ruling that levied $4.7 billion in damages against American football’s National Football League (NFL) over its Sunday Ticket broadcast offering, after an appeal from the league.
Earlier this year (June 27) a federal jury found that the league had conspired to inflate the price of Sunday Ticket, its out-of-market broadcast offering, and that it was liable for damages to its 2.4 million subscribers and 48,000 commercial business customers.
Now, though, US district Judge Philip Gutierrez in the state of California has thrown out that verdict due to the inclusion of two testimonies from Sunday Ticket subscribers that “didn’t follow the rules” and should not have been included.
Gutierrez said in a court filing: “The Court agrees that Dr. Rascher’s and Dr. Zona’s testimonies based on their flawed methodologies should be excluded. And because there was no other support for the class-wide injury and damages elements of plaintiffs’… claims, judgment as a matter of law for the defendants is appropriate.”
This case - which has been running since 2015 - was divided into two sets of plaintiffs classes - individual Sunday Ticket residential subscribers, and commercial establishments, such as hotels and bars.
The jury ruling, now negated, saw $4.6 billion awarded to the residential subscribers and a further $96 million to the business subscribers - however antitrust law in the US means that the damages figure may be tripled to as much as $14.1 billion if a judge so chooses.
Naturally, the NFL expressed pleasure that the jury ruling had been overturned, stating: “We are grateful for today’s ruling in the Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit. We believe that the NFL's media distribution model provides our fans with an array of options to follow the game they love, including local broadcasts of every single game on free over-the-air television. We thank Judge Gutierrez for his time and attention to this case and look forward to an exciting 2024 NFL season.”
The NFL had denied any wrongdoing throughout the case and announced its intention to appeal the jury decision almost immediately after it was announced, arguing that Sunday Ticket’s nature as a premium product necessitated its price.
The case began in 2015, when a batch of lawsuits were filed on behalf of DirecTV subscribers, arguing that exclusive agreements between the NFL and the broadcaster unlawfully eliminated competition for the live telecasts.
Those cases were consolidated before US District Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell in Los Angeles, who then dismissed the litigation in 2017 and ruled that the plaintiffs had not shown that the NFL’s arrangement with DirecTV undermined competition.
O’Connell, who died that same year, decided that the agreements did not reduce the output of games available to the public and also noted that DirecTV was required to renegotiate its licensing agreement with the NFL every few years, so competitors had the opportunity to vie for the TV rights.
The San Francisco-based US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case in 2019, however, finding that lawyers for the subscribers had plausibly made the case that, absent the agreements, there would be a stronger market for game broadcasts and many more telecasts would be made available.
Then, in 2020, the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by the NFL and DirecTV. The parties had asked the justices to overturn the 2019 ruling but the court’s refusal meant the lawsuit could move forward.
